Abstract:

The patterns of ultrasonic backscattered echoes represent valuable information pertaining to the geometric shape, size, and orientation of the reflectors as well as the microstructure of the propagation path. Accurate estimation of the ultrasonic echo pattern is essential in determining the object or propagation path properties. This paper proposes a parameter estimation method for ultrasonic echoes based on Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) algorithm which is one of the most recent swarm intelligence based algorithms. A modified ABC (MABC) algorithm is given by adding an adjusting factor to the neighborhood search formula of traditional ABC algorithm in order to enhance its performance. The algorithm could overcome the impact of different search range on estimation accuracy to solve the multi-dimensional parameter optimization problems. The performance of the MABC algorithm is demonstrated by numerical simulation and ultrasonic detection experiments. Results show that MABC not only can accurately estimate various parameters of the ultrasonic echoes, but also can achieve the optimal solution in the global scope. The proposed algorithm also has the advantages of fast convergence speed, short running time and real-time parameters esti-mation.

Key words: artificial bee colony algorithm, swarm intelligence, global optimization, ultrasonic echoes, ultrasonic testing